While the concept of racial and ethnic composition refers to the racial and ethnic makeup of a population, the concept of diversity refers to the representation and relative size of different racial and ethnic groups within a population. Racial and ethnic diversity is maximized when all groups are represented in an area and have equal shares of the population.
We have used several approaches to measure the racial and ethnic diversity of the U.S. population in the 2020 Census results. These include the diversity index, prevalence rankings and diffusion score, and prevalence maps.